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SPLENDID PAPBAKEET. 
The Splendid Parrakeet, although not to say uncommon in its native 
land, is very rarely imported into ours, which is the more to he re- 
gretted that it is a grass-seed eater, and not more difficult to preserve 
in captivity than the Turquoisine and the Elegant. 
Seen running nimbly over the ground, among the long grass, the 
Splendid Parrakeet might, by its green back, blue face, and wings 
edged with blue, be taken for a Turquoisine; but when, alarmed by 
the approach of an intruder upon its ancestral domain, it rises with a 
whirr that somewhat reminds the beholder of a Partridge, and flies 
to the nearest she-oak, banksia, or mimosa, the deep red neck and 
breast reveal the fact that it is another and quite different bird. 
It is rather smaller than the Turquoisine, and of equally slim and 
graceful build. The nest is made in a hollow bough, where the female 
lays three or four eggs on the soft wood, hatching them in about 
eighteen days; and there are usually two broods in the season. 
The movements of this bird are in a great measure regulated by 
the supply of food; thus in one district where the crop of grass has 
been good, the Grass Parrakeets, with the Splendid at their head, 
abound; although in the next, where either a “Squatter’s” flocks, or 
the presence of an unusual number of the indigenous mammals, or 
perhaps of the prolific rodent so recently imported from the mother 
country, and which in the land of its adoption has displayed a fecundity 
so marvellous that it actually threatens to drive not only the native 
animals, but man himself from the scene, where, in such a case, the 
gi’ass has been either totally consumed, or at least prevented seeding, 
these birds are of rare occurrence; while if a bush-fire has recently 
desolated the land, they are not to be seen at all. 
When the breeding season is over they all retire to the far interior, 
to reappear on and near the southern coasts, as the season of love 
and marriage invites them to the fulfilment of the all-important duties 
of reproduction; which, accomplished, they retire once more to their 
favourite fastnesses, and it is on these journeys that the trapper could 
make of them an easy prey. 
It is much to be desired that dealers would endeavour to procure 
some of the rarer members of the family, instead of confining their 
attention to the importation of the few species they usually keep in 
stock, and which are as familiar to amateurs as the Linnet and the 
Eobin : we might then hope to become more intimately acquainted with 
the subject of the present notice, and others of its beautiful congeners, 
now quite unknown to the great majority of the English bird-loving 
public. 
It is difficult to understand the apathy of traders in this respect. 
